i'm really such a lady

This gets graphic

Before yesterday I’d only ever gone hiking once. It was last summer, it took 45 minutes roundtrip, and it ended with a trip to my favorite pizza place, Flatbread. Even as a total hiking n00b, I knew it was an easy hike.

So, when my friends Josh and Ben invited me to go on an “easy” hike with them, I knew their definition of easy was probably different than mine. Brothers, they spent their childrenhoods hiking around New England with their family. I spent mine eating tacos and peeing in kitty litter boxes.

I’d had fun hiking the first time I went, though, and I wanted to try it again. I knew their “easy” hike could take as much as an hour and a half, and would probably end with no more than a Domino’s pizza, but I decided to tough it. I agreed to go.

With only 15 minutes to get ready, I ran around my house grabbing anything I could possibly need on a hike. I threw on 1) a 7-year-old Maine Envirothon shirt, 2) a 3-year-old pair of running sneakers, and 3) one-size-too-small ankle socks. Then, I took my ripped North Face backpack and stuffed it with 1) two bottles of water, 2) a banana, an orange, an apple, and a granola bar.

Josh was driving, so I took the first few minutes of the ride to eat everything except the orange and drink one of my waters. Then it was time to ask about the hike.

Me: How this hike is?

Josh: Super easy! It’s going to be so fun! You’ll love it!

Me: I am sure, I am a very good hiker. How long it is?

Josh: Oh it’s nothing. Nine miles, methinks.

Me: LOL. You fib.

And he did fib. It wasn’t nine miles, it was ten. Ten miles of walking up and down a mountain.

At first, it wasn’t that bad — I was keeping up just fine, internally congratulating myself on my level of fitness. Then the five-minute mark passed. The following sentence, which I said after seeing the second ascent, summarizes the day.

“EFF THESE EFFING HILLS. SORRY.” (Edited for politeness.)

Those effing hills effed me for the next five hours. Here’s me when I reached the top:

(Edited to reflect my insides and stank and metaphorical tears)

Hiking is not fun. Being on top of the mountain is alright I guess, cause you get to see pretty views, but the parts that come before and after seriously blow. It’s just really really hard work. And, since I didn’t have nearly enough food or water, by the end I felt like I had a strain of ankle-spraining flu. And, since my footwear sucked, my feet felt like this: